


The Sound of Peace

by jonnyhustle



Series: Meet-Cute AUs [1]
Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - No Powers, College Student Derek, College Student Stiles, Exams, M/M, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2579873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonnyhustle/pseuds/jonnyhustle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From melodramaticguitarsolo's "important college AUs to consider for your otp":<br/><b>"we’ve never talked but your favorite spot in the library is right across from my favorite spot so i see you all the time and sometimes we give each other commiserating looks"</b></p><p> </p><p>  <i>See, Stiles has always cruised through his classes. He’s found some hard, sure, but they were still manageable without having to study beyond last-minute cram sessions. Sometimes, he forgot that Scott wasn’t like that. He certainly wasn’t dumb, but Stiles just seemed to get things as soon as he read over them. Scott didn’t. So, when Stiles had free time, he always assumed Scott did too. </i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>So, technically it’s Stiles’ fault that Scott has been put on academic probation, but he doesn’t see why Scott can’t just go study at the library like everyone else.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> I recently just graduated and suddenly I have so much free time to spend on writing. I'm trying to get back into writing creative pieces instead of just essays and reports, so constructive criticism (and prompts!) is very much appreciated. 
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr is also here if you wanna hang out.](http://reluctantvillain.tumblr.com/)

It doesn’t take very long for Stiles and Scott to realise that rooming together in college wasn’t their brightest idea. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t that bad compared to some of their other ideas (like, searching for a dead body in the woods, for example).

The first time they get an inkling that maybe they should’ve have branched out a little comes when Stiles walks in on Scott and Kira for the forth time that week. Stiles just groans, scrunches his eye shut and soldiers on through to grab his stuff before slamming the door shut behind him. 

Seriously. 

He is not being late to class because of Scott and Kira. Again. That excuse is almost becoming the college equivalent of “my dog ate my homework.”

It becomes even more obvious when Scott gets so mad over Stiles’ mess that he grabs all of the empty pizza boxes, candy bar wrappers and soda cans and piles them up on Stiles’ single bed. The plan did backfire a bit when Stiles just pushed the rubbish off of his sheets and collapsed face down on top of his bed. Scott had felt so guilty the next morning, even though it didn’t really bother Stiles at all, that he ended up cleaning it himself.

The grin that Stiles couldn’t suppress afterwards fired Scott up all over again.

Though, they’re completely unable to ignore it when Scott gets a letter of warning. 

“I’m on academic probation,” he says, voice flat, refusing to make eye contact with Stiles. 

“So, I guess you don’t want to play Call of Duty then?” Stiles asks, controller already in his hand. 

“Stiles,” Scott warns, emotion finally seeping into his voice. 

See, Stiles has always cruised through his classes. He’s found some hard, sure, but they were still manageable without having to study beyond last-minute cram sessions. Sometimes, he forgot that Scott wasn’t like that. He certainly wasn’t dumb, but Stiles just seemed to get things as soon as he read over them. Scott didn’t. So, when Stiles had free time, he always assumed Scott did too. 

This meant that they had a lot of impromptu gaming and marathon sessions. Mostly just the two of them, sometimes Kira, sometimes other people from down the hall. Scott tried to make excuses every now and then, but he’d been following Stiles since they were kids. When Stiles says, “You don’t need to study, man,” he figures Stiles is right. Stiles is usually the one getting them out of trouble, even if he’s the one that gets them into it in the first place. Stiles has never been this wrong about something before.

So, technically it’s Stiles’ fault that Scott has been put on academic probation, but he doesn’t see why Scott can’t just go study at the library like everyone else.

“It’s too quiet!” Scott defends, and he did win the coin toss so he doesn’t even know why Stiles is arguing this.

“Oh my god,” Stiles groans, “that’s the point! It’s so you can focus!”

“But I can’t focus when it’s quiet.”

“Then why do I have to go?”

“Because you’re not background noise.”

And that… That is a perfectly good excuse. Also, something Stiles takes pride in even though he probably shouldn’t.

“Stop grinning,” Scott frowns, moving to grab Stiles’ backpack and computer before throwing them in his best friend’s hands, “go do homework. Study. Get laid. I don’t care, just go.”

Stiles takes his things and goes, sighing dramatically when Scott closes the door in his face. 

He doesn’t know where to go now. 

The coffee shop on campus is always too busy, and Stiles has never had good enough self-control to stop himself from falling into a caffeine spiral when he has direct access to coffee. It’s just not an environment that’s conducive to studying at all.

The common room in their dorm usually has people, like Stiles, who are cruising through college and using the time before exams to catch up on their TV shows and video games. 

And that’s how he ends up taking the advice he gave Scott. He’s only been to the library one or two times, so he wanders each of the floors until he finally finds somewhere comfortable to sit. Still, he chooses it based on the proximity of the most attractive man he’s ever laid eyes on rather than anything useful like being near the stacks or away from noisy freshmen.

The desk he chooses is small, rocks when he sets his books on top of it, and is placed directly beside the only bin on the entire floor. This means that he spends his hours there mostly uncomfortable, often getting disturbed by people knocking into him as they throw out their rubbish (or throwing their rubbish directly at his face when they fail to hit the bin). 

Still, the most attractive man he’s ever seen is directly within his line of sight. 

He sees no reason to move. 

He stays at the library for half an hour after the man finally leaves, almost five and a half hours after Scott first kicked him out of their room. He got most of his readings done for the week, read through a couple of articles on Buzz Feed and killed some time on Tumblr. He also looked at the man enough to be able to perfectly describe him to a police sketch artist if required, but that’s neither here nor there. Though, if it did ever come to that, the man would probably end up getting picked up within ten minutes. Not that Stiles was excessive in his staring or anything. He just so happened to zone out a lot, and look at that, the man was just there. 

Sometimes, the man was even shooting him looks that look of desperation and hopelessness that all college students seem to have. Stiles is sure he’s shooting the man those looks too, though sometimes he gets confused and thinks he might resemble the sleazy emoji face more. 

Scott only scoffs when Stiles finally gets back to the room.

“You didn’t spend all day in the library,” Scott accuses, pointing an ink-stained finger in Stiles’ direction. 

“What? I did!” Stiles argues, defiant, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You studied?” Scott asks, dubious.

He doesn’t even try to hide it.

“Why would I lie?”

Scott frowns at that too, obviously unable to come up with a good answer. 

He ends up just asking, “Why do you do anything?”

Stiles doesn’t have a good answer to that.

***

It continues like that for the next three weeks. Scott studies hard. Stiles does as well, though his reason isn’t as solid as Scott. He only keeps on going to the library because he realised that the man is there almost every day, sitting in that same spot. 

Stiles can’t say for sure, but last time he got to the floor he noticed that his usual desk was occupied by a single red and black backpack sitting on top. Frustrated, he walked around the floor trying to find an available nearby desk. By the time he decided to just quit and go to another floor (or possibly even back to his room, Scott could deal), his desk was available.

Only, that wasn’t the most interesting thing. 

What was the most interesting thing was the fact that the red and black backpack had been relocated to sit beside the feet of the man. 

Stiles probably stared harder that afternoon that he usually did, but he also caught the man staring at him just as often. 

Another day, Stiles is actually working on a research project, though he’s stuck in the middle of a Wikipedia binge when he realises someone’s standing beside him. He looks up, comes face to face with the crotch of the man he’s spent all his time staring at, and suddenly doesn’t know where to look. 

“Uh,” he says, resolutely staring at his computer, “can I help you?” 

“Can you watch my stuff?” The man asks, his voice not quite as deep as Stiles had been expecting, “I’m going to get coffee.”

Stiles takes the opportunity to look up, meet the man’s eye. The man looks as if he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, though that’s not a surprise given the point of semester they’re in. Stiles wouldn’t have shaved either if he could’ve gotten away with it. Instead, he’d made the active decision to wake up half an hour earlier and double his caffeine dosage. 

He has green eyes, framed by glasses with thick frames, and Stiles just kind of doesn’t want to look away. Ever. He’s also frowning and that, that is enough to make Stiles blink and turn back to his computer even if he doesn’t want to.

“Sure thing, dude,” Stiles says, dismissing the man. 

The man nods, makes a move to walk away before Stiles reaches out to stop him.

“Actually, could you get me one too?” 

He pulls his wallet out and hands over some cash.

The man accepts the money, but looks pointedly at the two empty Red Bull cans sitting on Stiles’ table. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m going to die,” Stiles says, dismissively, “please.”

The man just nods and leaves. 

Stiles is almost surprised ten minutes later when the man actually places the coffee on the edge of Stiles’ desk. 

Since he’s finally only just began working on his assignment after working himself up to it for the past couple of hours, he just nods “thank you” and takes a sip of his coffee. 

He doesn’t think anything of it until he tells Scott. 

“He bought you coffee?” Scott asks. 

This time Scott’’s the one with the controller in his hand while Stiles is trying to study. 

“Well, yeah, but I paid for it.” 

Scott shrugs, “Still, he didn’t have to do that.”

“He was already going to get himself coffee.” 

Scott just nods, already moving on from the conversation.

“Dude, come on, let’s play. You’ve spent all day studying.” 

Stiles doesn’t know how to correct him because, actually, he had spent all day reading Wikipedia, watching the man and researching the symptoms of a heart attack.

In hindsight, even though it meant he finally got to talk to the man, he definitely had way too much caffeine. 

**

It’s the night before Stiles’ first final when they talk again. He’s noticed more and more that his desk is always reserved until he gets onto the floor, and then suddenly the backpack on the table is gone and back beside the man. 

Stiles has never actually seen it happen, but he doesn’t think it’s just a coincidence.

He started doing the same as well. Sort of. There’s only been one day where he got to the library before the other man. As soon as he realised, he went back to the ground floor and got an extra cup of plain black coffee from the cart outside. It was what the man had got Stiles when he asked, so he figured it was probably what the man himself drank. 

With the extra coffee in his hand, he placed it in the centre of the desk with a blue post-it note that simply had “RESERVED” scrawled across it. Stiles kept an eye out for anyone trying to take the coffee and the desk, but the man ended up sitting down a couple of minutes later. 

Stiles absolutely did not blush when the man threw a hesitant, but thankful, smile his way. 

Stiles doesn’t know how the man knew the coffee was for him, that the reservation was for him, but he knows he hasn’t been that subtle. The man hasn’t been, either.

It’s not something to focus on today, though. Having an actual exam the next day means that Stiles has to spend just as much time studying as he does staring into space (read also: into the man’s general direction). It’s not until it’s announced over the PA system that the library’s about to close that Stiles packs up his things. 

Stiles might slow down, might stall the process of leaving a little, when he realises that the man’s only just started packing up his things as well. Stiles hadn’t check up on him for a few hours, had thought he’d left ages ago.

They walk down the stairs together in silence, but Stiles doesn’t have it in him to feel awkward. Honestly, all he wants to do is fall into bed. If it was any other day he might try and say something to the man, might ask him his name or ask if he liked the coffee, but he doesn’t.

Of course, the man takes that as his cue to start a conversation. 

“Thanks for the coffee,” he says, hesitant, refusing to look Stiles in the eye, “I’m Derek, by the way.”

“Stiles,” he answers, offering his own name, “It’s no problem, and thanks for never missing the bin when you throw your rubbish across the room,” he says, still bitter about the rubbish he gets pelted with in his seat beside the trash.

The man laughs, and Stiles is so, so exhausted, but he thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

Stiles grins in response. 

“You know,” the man says, quiet, “I made a bet with myself that if I got above 90% on my exams I’d finally ask you for your number.” 

If possible, Stiles’ grin grows wider.

“Yeah? How do you think you’ll go?” 

“Well, I’ve been putting in the hours.”

Stiles thinks about how many hours he’s spent at the library lately, alternating between studying and trying to covertly catch glimpses of Derek. He thinks about how many times Scott’s complained that they never get to see one another any more because Stiles is always studying, even though he’s doing the exact same thing (and if he’s not, he should be). 

“Yeah, I think you have been.”

When he’d first seen Derek at the library, he’d written down his phone number on a bit of scrap paper. He hadn’t been able to work up the courage, too intimidated by how Derek looked, plus he didn’t want to interrupt him if he’d genuinely been studying. Instead, he’d just dropped it into his bag, thinking that maybe, after exams, if Derek was still at the library, he’d hand his number over. 

It’s taken a couple of months, but it’s nice to finally hand it over. 

“You should definitely call me. We could celebrate,” he offers, smiling.

“And if I don’t get 90%?”

Stiles shrugs, “You could call me anyway, for commiseration.” 

In the end, Stiles isn’t surprised when he gets a text asking him to celebratory drinks. His grades seemed to have improved since he started going to the library, and since Derek looked like he’d actually been studying more than Stiles had, 90% would’ve been no sweat.


End file.
